


(Don't) Immanentize the Eschaton

by elenathehun



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Magic, Existential Crisis, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Female Friendship, Gen, Jinchuuriki-centric, POV Outsider, Pre-Apocalypse, Prequel, ethnoreligious minority
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elenathehun/pseuds/elenathehun
Summary: Karui, magician-in-training, has 99 problems now that she's left home.  Senju Tobirama’s botched connection to the divine is only one of them.





	(Don't) Immanentize the Eschaton

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hiruma_Musouka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiruma_Musouka/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Following Dreams (to Doom or Desire)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7290157) by [Hiruma_Musouka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiruma_Musouka/pseuds/Hiruma_Musouka). 



> This was originally conceived as a birthday present for my dear friend Hiruma-Musouka... _16 months ago_. As you can imagine, it is wildly off-track what I originally envisioned: I wanted to write a comedy from the POV of an outsider character. I kept the outsider POV, substituted some existential drama, and _voila_! A story painstakingly comes together.
> 
> My sincere thanks to both crowind and squidspawn for beta-reading this baby and giving their honest opinion. And of course, I would encourage you to read the story this is inspired by! It won't make much sense otherwise.

_Kamiziru Ishiwaka Memorial Stadium, seventh day of the fifth lunar month_

The buzzer blared loudly, signalling the end of the match. The tip of Karui's blade was only a hair away from the exposed skin of her opponent's neck. She had abandoned her chains halfway through the bout—the special blades Karui had used to pin them to the concrete floor had seen to that—but Karin had been a hard opponent even without them. She was fast, strong, and far more clever than most of Karui’s opponents. But all that practice against Killer B’s unique style had paid off, and Karui had managed to finally clear the distance by dashing in between the other girl’s blades of razor-sharp wind. Once she closed, there was no way Karin could prevent Karui from cutting her throat, even if the time hadn’t run down. 

The referee called the bout exactly as Karui had expected: "The winner of the A-level junior championship bout is Karui, by a knock-out."

The auditorium was dead silent for one long moment, but just as Karui began to worry— _does the crowd disapprove? Uzumaki is always a perennial favorite for the spectators_ —the crowd went absolutely wild. The cheering was loud enough to shake the walls. Karui grinned, unable to hold her stern face in the midst of such adulation. She saluted her opponent, saluted the referee, and saluted the crowd twice, once for each side of the room, before sheathing her blade. She walked the length of the room towards the lockers with her head held high. 

A knock-out was always the best kind of victory, because it was _definitive_. No one could say that it was a fluke or a trick or a cheat that Karui, a savage from the freezing crags of the Northeastern Cape, had won—and make no mistake, this was a great victory for both Karui and her people. Karui has just won the Junior World Magic Arena championships with just her sword and her will, an unprecedented event in today's theory-heavy tournaments. She is the first full-blooded nin to win in a quarter of a century. She is just shy of her sixteenth birthday.

Karui was so focused on getting to the locker room she didn’t see—or feel—the person leaning against the vending machine next to the water fountain. An unforgivable error, given that person’s unique and terrifying aura, and Karui definitely paid for her negligence in basic observation. One moment Karui was only thinking about the blessings of a hot shower, and the next her left upper arm was seized in a fierce grip and she was pulled away from the long-awaited nirvana of cleanliness. Karui tried to backhand the interloper out of habit, but totally missed. It wasn’t really a surprise; her muscles felt like jelly. Then the familiar sound of a tongue clicking disapprovingly wended its way from Karui’s ears to her brain, and she realized it was only Yugito, blonde hair pulled back from her face with a headband that matched her blue shirt. It was almost perfectly aligned with the thin wire of rainbow light that encircled her skull. Unless one looked closely, a person might even think they were one and the same. 

"What the hell, Yugito?" Karui snarled. She was in no mood to indulge in her friend’s idea of a joke. "Can’t whatever it is wait until _after_ I clean up?”

"Your future simply cannot wait," the other woman replied sharply. "So keep your mouth shut and follow me.”

“But—”

“ _No talking_.”

There was absolutely no arguing with Yugito when she was in a mood. Karui suffered herself to be pulled to the stairwell in the corner of the building; at least until she realized Yugito wanted her to climb the stairs. There, she balked. After nearly three days of non-stop matches, giving her all in her very physical fighting style, she had no desire for unnecessary physical exertion.

"I know you’re tired and sore, but I need you to trust me. Only a little bit further, I promise," Yugito said, starting off with a sharp tone and ending with a soft one. It was a little creepy hearing Yugito, of all people, act nice. 

There was no universe where Yugito ever came close to pleading—Karui’s brain rejected the very idea. But somehow, it was happening right now, and it was just adding to Karui’s bleary, exhausted confusion. Somehow, she found herself climbing the stairs, flight after flight after aching flight. The adrenaline had pretty much worn off by now, and Karui would swear that every bone in her body was aching in time with the beat of her heart. By the time they reached the fourth—or was it fifth?—floor, Karui was leaning heavily on Yugito’s shoulder, and the other woman was actually letting her.

 _Is this really Yugito?_ Karui thought with wonder and more than a little suspicion. _Can’t be. Hard-ass Yugito would never let me rest on her shoulder, no matter how much she likes you._

“If you keep talking, I’m going to make you walk under your own power,” Yugito replied acerbically. “And don’t call me that name, you know I despise vulgarity.”

Nope, it wasn’t a dream. Which meant that whatever was at the end of the road was terrible enough that Yugito felt it necessary to be kind. Karui would have pondered on that more closely, but her thoughts were moving as fast as molasses. Even as she tried to pick apart why, exactly, she should feel worried, Yugito led them through a series of maintenance corridors and badly-lit intersections, before finally pushing through a battered set of double-doors—

—and on the other side of the doors was a richly appointed hall, at least compared with the hallways behind them. It had carpet that had been cleaned sometime in the last year, and the lights, while still fluorescent, were at least steady and bright. It was the floor with the private observation rooms—the skyboxes, the other competitors called them, even though they were nothing like the luxurious private rooms the professional tournament stadiums held. It was here that Yugito finally stopped short, in front of an innocuous wooden door upon which the dark-eyed woman briskly knocked thrice.

There was a brief pause, long enough for Karui to finally _wake up_ and level a brutal glare at the side of Yugito's head. But before she could ask Yugito what she was thinking, taking Karui to see a potential sponsor in her current sweaty state, someone opened the door from within: a big man with long dark hair and laughing eyes.

"Yugito, we've been expecting you! And I see you’ve brought your young friend, too!" he said brightly while ushering them inside the room. Karui took a full minute to realize the laughing man was Senju Hashirama, and that was honestly a minute longer than she should have. After all, it was not every day that one met the first Sage seen in the world since the gods had departed this plane of existence out of disappointment and anger. 

More importantly to Karui, he was also one of only two people in the world permanently banned from participating in the S-class World Magic Arena due to an overwhelming use of power. It was a mercy she was so tired, because otherwise Karui would surely make an utter fool of herself. Instead, she was struck dumb by sheer shock, which probably saved her. The next thing that saved her was Killer B, who approached Karui with an ebullient grin and and a familiar hearty clap to her shoulders. 

Her teacher solicitously pulled her further into the room, and Karui found herself quite suddenly in front of a large, clear window. It had an excellent view of the court of her last bout. Her eye caught on Uzumaki’s blazing head, clear and visible even from above. It looked like she was commiserating with at least one of her kin, a fair-haired boy her own age who’d been cheering the loudest from the stands. B jostled her quite deliberately, his meaty paw still firm on her shoulder, and Karui recollected the fact that she wasn’t alone with a start—just in time for another person in the room to speak.

"An excellent showing and a good final bout,” a feminine voice congratulated. "I was cheering for my dear sister, of course, but she was simply outmatched. Perhaps now she’ll _listen_ when I tell her that natural gifts and extreme focus only take you so far when untempered by a broader view of the battlefield..”

Karui turned her head to the other side of the room; the speaker was a striking woman with long red hair and dark eyes. Unlike her husband, Karui recognized Uzumaki Mito immediately—who wouldn't recognize the current president of the Mage Professionals Association?—but before she could reply the other woman was officiously pulling on some leather gloves and taking up a bag from the floor.

“I would stay for the awards ceremony, but I simply can’t tarry any longer,” she said, mildly apologetic. “But please accept my sincere congratulations on your win, young Karui. I’m sure we’ll see great things from you in the future. I’ll let my honored colleague take over from here. Killer B, I’m sure I’ll see you at the next conference, but if you want to speak before then, you can remove the silencing rune if you gargle with hydrogen peroxide, and not a moment before—be grateful I didn’t use one of my more _permanent_ methods of silencing annoying creatures. It’s unseemly for a grown man to cheer so loudly, no matter how proud he might be.”

And with several brisk motions and a whirl of her bright hair, Uzumaki Mito was off and away, Senju Hashirama somehow pulled in her wake. The room seemed smaller and darker after they left, and Karui wondered in a daze how it was possible that two such people had come to see her fight. Well, more likely they’d come to see Uzumaki fight—the other girl was currently the third in the line of succession for her family—but still! They’d congratulated _her_ , Karui of the Clouded Sky! Her mother and father would be so proud when she told them about this.

"I must admit, I haven't seen such outstanding swordsmanship since I saw a tape of the '67 world championship bout between Mifune and Salamander Hanzo," a third stranger complimented, but by this time all the shock and surprise had been wrung out of Karui. She slowly turned her head in the direction of the voice. 

In the corner of the room furthest from both the window and the door stood a man. He had the white hair and red eyes of the original invaders from across the sea, the ghost-men her ancestors had thought had come from the depths of the sea to haunt them for their transgressions against the earth. Even among those people who hadn’t a drop of nin blood running in their veins, it was a rare enough coloration that Karui recognized the man immediately: Senju Tobirama, groundbreaking magical researcher, winner of this year’s Chikamatsu Prize for outstanding contributions in the field of thaumaturgy, and the current talent recruit for the only university on the continent currently accepting applications from nin students.

Six months ago, Yugito had shown her the press release from Konoha. The governing Board of Trustees for the Academy had voted to overturn centuries of tradition and finally allow students of nin extraction to apply for admission. Karui had painstakingly put together an application packet at Yugito’s firm insistence, and after submitting it for consideration, summarily forgot about the whole thing. After all, allowing applications from nin was one thing, but actually enrolling nin students was quite another... 

Karui forced herself to smile at the man. Yugito’s strange urgency was now crystal-clear. Senju Tobirama was her best chance at being admitted; she absolutely could not screw this up. But surely it was a good sign when the only _other_ person banned for life from the S-class trials complimented her form and compared her art to the last great example of swordsmanship in the modern era. She couldn’t help but be flattered, especially since he and his brother had been banned after they had destroyed a whole stadium using nothing but blunted blades. Karui had been watching the televised broadcast with her family at the time, just a small girl enamored of the sport, and seeing the concrete walls crumble with the force of—

Killer Bee squeezed her shoulder _hard_ , and Karui came back to herself once again, head pounding fiercer than ever. What was wrong with her? The match had been hard, but not that hard. She should have been tired, but only tired, not this dragging exhaustion that kept pulling her thoughts off-center and her bones to the ground. Karui refocused her attention on Senju Tobirama, idly tracing the red tattoos on his cheeks and chin that marked him as Favored by the Gods. She’d never seen one in real life before—were they supposed to look so ordinary? 

“Thank you for the gift of your presence, sir,” Karui finally replied, ages after Tobirama had ended his sentence. “I’m sure you have other places you need to be, but I appreciate you taking the time to watch our bout.”

“No need to thank me,” Tobirama replied with a fluid shrug. “I actually came to evaluate you for early admittance. I’ve come to a decision, and I thought I might as well tell you now instead of making you wait for an official letter. You fought with intelligence and power today and in all of your previous bouts, and your formal application was superlative in every sense. Killer Bee assures me that you understand the importance of hard work?"

"Ten thousand hours make a champion," Karui recited as if by rote. Her bones felt as though they were burning her from within. Tobirama nodded approvingly—of course, as a former champion, he'd probably heard the phrase a million times before—but Karui could only notice how his shadow, in her vision, twisted like a wild flame. What was going on here? This was almost like the Pilgrimage to the Mother Temple on Turtle Island, with the maze full of dead ends and writhing shadows!

Killer Bee shifted his grip, and slung her left arm over his shoulders so he could support her better. Yugito did the same on the other side. Tobirama smiled with understanding; in her vision, his tattoos burned with a holy light.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I've kept you too long, and I know myself how the exhaustion hits you after a good fight. I just wanted to inform you personally that your application was accepted, and we will expect you for our initial orientation on August 8th. You'll receive more information from your duly appointed academic adviser very shortly."

"Thank you so much for the consideration and support," Karui managed to gasp out, and then she fainted for the first time in her life.

* * *

_Main Campus of the Academy for Witchcraft and Magework, twenty-ninth day of the sixth lunar month_

If Karui had been inclined to pass over the strange effect of that initial meeting as the by-product of a body and mind pushed over the edge by exhaustion, the second unexpected meeting with Senju Tobirama put that to rest. All freshmen were required to attend an initial campus seminar held by current Dean of Student Affairs—and that Dean was now Senju Hashirama, replacing the late, unlamented Shimura Danzo.

The seminar had started ordinary enough—Karui had been sitting in the appointed lecture hall, idly tapping a pen against the arm of the chair and studiously ignoring the student next to her, some pimply boy with an unfortunate haircut and even worse taste in band T-shirts. There had been a stir near the front of the room, and Senju Tobirama had walked onto the stage, looking more than mildly irritated. 

“My apologies, but a critical experiment is keeping Hashirama close to the lab,” Tobirama said with a hard face. “So I will be hosting this freshman seminar in his stead.”

And at first, everything had seemed normal as the other Senju brother had begun his talk. At first. After two minutes into what sounded like a pretty standard boilerplate introduction to the school, Karui noticed his shadow was flickering, warping, _transforming_ into something that didn’t resemble anything close any man or beast Karui had ever seen with her own two eyes. It twisted and turned on the wall behind him, arcane trails that drew the eyes always inward, to a center that sparked with a prism of black light—

Someone stumbled into Karui from the side, and she felt a hand clamp onto the meat of her forearm with painful force. Karui tore her eyes away from the trap of that hypnotic shadow and looked up. She saw a pale face framed by sandy-blonde hair braided in a traditional style, narrow brown eyes set in a frown. Karui parted her lips, but before she could speak the other girl spoke first, saying something in a guttural, broken accent. Karui’s eyes widened; even with the strange accent, it sounded somehow familiar—and then the other woman shook her shoulder and repeated herself one more time: “ _Get me out of here!"_

She then clapped her free hand over her mouth before bending over, face even paler than before. Never let it be said that Karui was slow on the uptake: she pulled the other girl’s arm around her back and started guiding her down the stairs, conscious all the while of the eyes of the other students on them, a murmur rising in the room—at least until the girl she was carrying started making abrupt gagging sounds. Then it was dead silent, aside from the sound of their footsteps. When Karui managed to get to the door and push it open with her foot, she heard Tobirama start his speech from right before the interruption. Then the door closed behind her, and she couldn’t hear anything more.

The blonde girl she’d half-carried out released her hold on Karui and stumbled over to a garbage can—and just in time, as well, as she noisily vomited. Karui winced in sympathy, before walking over and rubbing the girl’s back. There was a bulletin board right above it, with the standard flyers for off-campus subleases and tutoring from upperclassmen in need of cash. One sheet in particular caught her eye—the old, nearly forgotten rune for “endure” saw to that.

 _Why would someone here use that?_ Karui thought distractedly. _It’s only used by people like us_.

And sure enough, underneath the rune was an announcement written in the vulgar script. **JOIN THE STUDENT NIN COUNCIL TODAY!** Was the header, and underneath in smaller print was the time and place of the first meeting: _7 PM Thursday, in Room 7-12 in the Aburame Shikuro Building for Experimental Chemistry_. At the bottom was a blurry photo of a group of cheerful students, all with the black facial tattoos of the river clans. The new officers of the council? One woman in the front of the group had a happy smile creasing the large fangs tattooed on her cheeks; it was curiously disarming. It rang a bell in Karui’s memory—a story from a long-ago lesson of a brave huntress who had won the favor of the God Sak’mo, bore him five fierce and loyal daughters who went on to found a Clan famous in equal measure for their tempers and their dogs. 

_Maybe we’re not the only ones_ , Karui thought hopefully. _Maybe we’re just the only freshman_. 

But there was a pained groan from below, so Karui turned her attention back to her new companion, still bent over the trash can and occasionally seizing in another purge. Karui winced in sympathy and rubbed the girl’s shoulders; the sensation of dry heaves was never pleasant. When she squatted to look at the other girl’s face, it didn’t look good—her skin was waxy and she was panting shallowly, a dull look in her eyes..

“Hey, do you need me to call someone to pick you up?” Karui offered tentatively when the other girl hadn’t heaved in a few minutes. The girl didn’t answer, just shook her head very slightly before pushing herself to an upright position, knuckles white around the rim of the trash can. 

“No,” she said vehemently, voice unexpectedly strong. ““I need you to help me find an ---.”

Karui blinked, a little taken aback. Omoi hadn’t been kidding when he said their cousins from the Western Reserves barely spoke the same language as them anymore! “I’m sorry, say that again?”

“An ---,” the other girl said again, the word sounding like a cross between a grunt and a sneeze. ““You must have them where you are from—a holy man or woman who handles breaches from the **ASTRAL PLANES**?”

It was probably clear from the look on Karui’s face that she still didn’t understand what the other woman was trying to say. She’d caught the phrase for “astral planes”, but everything else sounded like nonsense. The blonde girl’s brows furrowed into a deep frown before abruptly smoothing. “We need an exorcist!"

“Oh! you mean a shaman?” Karui asked with relief, still trying to decipher that horrible grating accent in her head. “But shamans don’t really do healing anymore, they’ll just send you to a doctor anyway—"

“It’s not for me, it’s for that curse on Senju Tobirama!” the blonde shouted hoursely, tugging one of her braids in frustration. “You saw it just as well as I did—he’s got some kind of botched connection to the **ASTRAL PLANES** of all places, and it is really, seriously screwing up his connection to the --- world. It’s like a giant --- sore on the fabric of reality. It keeps up long enough, it’s not going to end at us just _seeing_ things on the other side.”

Karui peered at the girl’s tense, sweaty face, and finally placed where she’d seen her before: Temari, a war-fan user from one of the western nin clans. She’d taken first in the junior B-ranked championships in World Magic Arena three years ago, only to drop out of the junior A-ranks due to a death in the family later in the year. Killer B had kept tabs on her for awhile, only to let it lapse when it was clear that Temari was not returning to the sport as an active participant. It had been disappointing at the time. There were so few nin in the ring, and even fewer women. Karui had always wondered what had happened to the other girl…

“He’s **FAVORED** ,” Karui replied, a little unsurely. “It’s really strange, given his background, but—”

““Like being **FAVORED** means anything good, now that the Gods have turned away from us and our sins?” Temari snarled. 

That wasn’t a popular interpretation of all the awakenings that had started happening in the last few decades. Karui didn’t agree with it at all, but it was a valid one. And even in the old stories, being Favored didn’t always mean an easy road for those chosen, either. At least not in the mountains where Karui’s kin still lived as close to the old ways as possible, telling their stories of the tragedies that commenced when God took note of Man…

And no one had been Chosen in decades, at least. Save for Iz’na, who had Chosen one of the she-wolves who had come with the original invasion force, and had never once looked back at his suffering people, the other Gods had remained stubbornly silent after the initial invasion from across the Eastern Ocean. And Tobirama, for all his inborn power, didn’t have a drop of nin blood running through his veins. Who could say how his inborn magic was interacting with the higher and lower Planes? Iz’na’s foreign wife had certainly never lasted very long through the generations.

“I’m not local,” Karui finally replied, only to be stopped by Temari’s disbelieving snort.

““Not anymore than I am,” she said derisively. “And it’s a sad state of affairs if two strangers have to deal with this. But I know the monks of **MOUNT MYOBOKU** keep a waystation down on East 42nd Street, and I also know the shaman stationed there. If we call a rideshare, we can be there within the hour, and finally get some actual help.”

Karui nodded slowly. “Or at least some answers. There aren’t a lot of nin here, but I’m sure they’ve taken some steps to assess the issue.”

“You have more confidence than me in these traitors,” Temari said with a tight smile, already adjusting her clothing to look a little more presentable. “But how would they even know? Does he look like a man who spends much time with living, breathing nin? I’m sure paper and ink are more congenial to him.”

Karui had no answer to that retort. If Temari was right, then it was definitely their sworn duty to find a local shaman and resolve the matter of Senju Tobirama’s fractured aura. But still...Killer B and Yugito had seen him the same time Karui had. If only she had spoken to them about it instead of writing it off as a hallucination! 

“Let’s go now,” Karui said firmly. “If it’s that urgent, we need to find this local shaman you know right away.

“That’s the spirit!” Temari said with a confident grin. “But before I forget: thanks for getting me out of there before I embarrassed myself—I’m Temari of the Searing Wind.”

“It’s no problem. I’m Karui of the Clouded Sky.”

* * *

The waystation on East 42nd street was a square, squat building that looked more like an office development than a temple. Temari didn’t pay it any mind, just stomped up the stairs and pushed the swinging door right in. Karui followed in her wake, a little intimidated by the strangeness of the locale. A proper shaman had a proper shaman’s hut out on the mountaintop or in the deep valleys, not an anodyne business development on the edge of town, door papered over with flyers advertising a language school and traditional herbal clinics.

Temari didn’t seem to feel any misgivings, or if she did, she didn’t show it. Karui wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be impressed or a little stupefied at the other woman’s sheer gall. While they had been waiting for their rideshare, she had proceeded to wash her face from a bottle of water, redo her braids while in the car, and then pull out a hand-mirror and reapply her lipstick on the sidewalk after they got out. It was the strangest girding for battle Karui had ever seen. 

“You!” Temari snarled at the unfortunate initiate manning the front desk. “Where is the exorcist, and why haven’t they dealt with that disaster at the university?”

The initiate just blinked twice. He had the brown hair and brown eyes of most nin from the riverlands, and the chubby face of a kid just before hitting that first big growth spurt: Karui though he was maybe fourteen years old at best. He didn’t look like he was totally up to the task of dealing with someone like Temari before noon on a weekday; _Karui_ wasn’t sure she was up for the task of dealing with someone like Temari before noon on a weekday. The boy stuttered incomprehensibly for a moment, before finally managing to gather his courage in the face of Temari’s truly impressive glare.

“I’m, uh, sorry. I don’t—" he stuttered before falling silent.

“How is an initiate barely fluent in the holy tongue?” Karui blurted out before covering her mouth in embarrassment.

The boy apparently knew enough of the language to flush very red, before setting his jaw mulishly. “I’m _learning_ ,” he said defensively in the settlers’ language. “It’s not an easy language to learn! And I’m not even an initiate, I’m just watching the place while the Great Pervert Sage takes all the monks out for a spiritual retreat.”

“Is this a joke?” Karui shot back in the same language. “Are you seriously telling me that not one person initiated into the mysteries of the Toad Mountain is here to speak with us?”

At this, the boy hesitated. “Well…” he hedged.

“So there is someone here,” Temari said softly. When Karui glanced over, she saw that Temari’s lipstick was stark and unnatural against her wan face. She was sweating again, an unhealthy sheen clear on her temple and the exposed nape of her neck. In short, she looked _terrible_.

“I knew we should have gone to see a doctor first!” Karui snapped as she jerked towards the other girl, only to stop short as Temari lifted up one hand. 

“Take us to whoever is left,” Temari said firmly. “My friend and I are having a religious crisis, and I need to speak to someone urgently.”

The boy hesitated a moment further, looking between Karui and Temari several times. But he eventually relented. 

“OK, Sister Rin probably wants to help people, and all that crap,” the boy grumbled. “...and she can kick your ass, too!”

Karui just bit her tongue and gestured for the boy to lead on, making sure to stand just a pace away from Temari as they followed him down a generic hallway and out another double-door to the right. The initiate marched through another hallway, identical to the first save for one thing: the warding runes seared into the lintels of every door they passed. They blazed like suns in Karui’s second sight. Whoever had made these was very, very good, almost as good as Killer B. 

“Do you see it too?” she murmured to Temari, and the other girl inclined her head slightly in response. “I don’t recognize the writer.” 

“Be wary,” the westerner whispered. “This isn’t Jiraiya’s work—"

“Why are you guys so slow?” the kid complained from further down the hallway. “Do you or do you not want to speak to Sister Rin?” 

“Weren’t you ever taught to be more considerate of your seniors? Or is that yet another thing the nin outside of the reserves neglect to teach their children?” Temari replied snidely. In the bright fluorescent light, Karui could see the back of the initiate’s neck flush even darker than before, but he held his tongue until the two girls caught up. 

“Come on, she’s just past this door,” he said roughly without meeting their eyes. He shoved the door open without waiting for their response and gestured them to go forward—a little mockingly, in Karui’s considered opinion. It was the sort of attitude that would earn him a boxed ear if Yugito had been near. She despised rudeness and discourtesy of any kind. But Temari paid him no mind, just walked forward with her eyes affixed on something in the distance—and Karui was worried enough about her new acquaintance to follow just behind. 

The doors led to a little asphalt courtyard full of cairns —although that was only the _second_ thing Karui noticed. The first was the utterly overpowering scent of pure alcohol powering through her sinuses like a rotary saw.

“Ugh,” Karui hissed with a flinch, eyes watering from the stench. “What kind of waystation is this?”

“A very traditional one for followers of the Toads,” another voice said mildly. “I’m not too fond of it myself, but I am only a guest in need of shelter—don’t _laugh_ , Konohamaru!”

And indeed, the boy was smiling for the first time since Karui and Temari had entered the building. 

“I’m not laughing! You always say that, but I’m not!” he protested weakly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

_Konohamaru… an old name for a new city_ , Karui thought, but before she could continue her train of thought, the other speaker was rising to her feet from her position at the base of one of the cairns. Sister Rin (for who else could it be?) was a harmless looking woman in her mid-twenties wearing the habit of a nun and the black facial tattoos of the nin of the river basins of the south. She was utterly unremarkable, save for the fact that in Karui’s Second Sight, she bore the fiery halo of those Possessed. Just like Yugito and Killer B, this Sister Rin held a demon inside her, preparing it for the purification to come at the end of this degenerate age.

“But I forget myself,” the woman said with a small smile. “I am Nohara Rin, lay sister initiated into the mysteries of the Shikkotsu Forest. And you are?” 

“Karui of the Clouded Sky,” Karui said quickly. Temari was looking even worse, if that was possible. It looked as though all the blood had drained from her body. “Accompanying Temari of the Searing Wind. Sister, I apologize for my rudeness, but is there a place to sit? I’m afraid my friend has been feeling poorly today, and I’m sure this environment is making it worse.”

“Of course, please follow me,” Sister Rin took the abrupt change in language with aplomb, and turned to lead them through another gate at the other side of the courtyard. Thanking the heavens the language of the river basins hadn’t diverged too far from her own dialect, Karui took Temari by the shoulder and started guiding her after the other woman, Konohamaru hovering on the other side, half-confused and half-worried if Karui judged the look on his face right.

Through the gate was another courtyard, but this one had a fountain in it, water trickling down successive falls until reaching a pool. The running water cleansed the smell of rotgut from the air, leaving behind a scent like green growing things. Sister Rin was sitting at the edge of the fountain already, a shaggy husky nosing around her skirt curiously. Karin pushed Temari in that direction, only for the other girl to shake her off irritably. 

“All right, all right, I’m fine now,” Temari said with a pinched face. Karui found herself exchanging a dubious glance with Konohamaru—what allies five minutes could make!—before following the other girl as she marched toward the nun. “We’ve introduced ourselves like good girls, so let’s get down to brass tacks: something is wrong with Senju Tobirama.

Rin stilled at Temeri’s words; her crown of fire blazed higher in Karui’s second sight. _Why does it look like that?_ Karui wondered queasily. _Yugito’s never does. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Killer B’s!_

“...you saw the fracture between the **ASTRAL PLANES** that surrounds him,” Sister Rin said neutrally.  “And being good, kind people, you’re trying to find a shaman to cleanse him.”

“You know already,” Temari said irritably, breathing shallowly through her mouth. “Then why haven’t you done anything about it?”

“You presume that we can,” Sister Rin said. “But without the name—"

“You don’t even know the name?” Karui interrupted. “How is that even possible? I saw the break within Dr. Senju almost immediately, any shaman worth his salt should be able to divine who has laid their hand upon him—”

Nothing shifted in her physical demeanor, but the halo over Sister Rin’s divine head burst into a tower of white flame. Karui flinched; Temari turned to the side and retched helplessly. Even the husky drew back with a pathetic whimper. Only Konohamaru was unaffected by the display. His eyes rapidly darted between the three women, but never raised his gaze to Sister Rin’s burning crown.

“What’s going on?” he asked slowly. “You guys are acting really weird all of a sudden.”

 _He can’t see it,_ Karui realized with horror. _He really hasn’t been initiated, not even to the lowest mysteries._

“You—” Karui coughed. “You need—”

“Konohamaru, why don’t you run and get the first aid kit from the front?” Sister Rin said tiredly. “Obviously they’re sick with something.”

Konohamaru still hesitated another minute, eyes still darting back and forth between Karui and Temari. The husky made his decision for him. One moment it was still cringing away from Rin’s side, and the next moment the big grey beast had bounded over to the boy. He nudged Konohamaru’s side with a whine, literally herding the kid out of the courtyard. In less than a minute, Konohamaru was gone—but Karui and Temari were still very much in the range of a holy woman who seemed to have less than perfect control over her denizen. Said holy woman walked over to Karui and extended her hand even as Karui shrank back. 

“You don’t need to take my hand if you don’t want to,” Sister Rin said in response, hand still patiently outstretched. “But I’ve been told that’s it’s difficult to find your feet again after experiencing one of my...outbursts.”

The crown above her head had subsided to a malevolent glow. No shadows were thrown on Sister Rin’s face, as patient and kind as it had been since the moment of first introduction. Nevertheless, Karui still felt suspicious. it was one thing to learn from Killer B and Yugito, who had been chosen as small children to be holy vessels and spent their formative years mastering themselves; it was another to take the hand of someone who looked calm—but evidently was far from it.

“Don’t take her hand!” Temari croaked, still on all fours on the pavement. “She’s not a woman, she’s a monster! _**She’s just like my brother!**_ ”

Well. Now, suddenly, Karui had an idea of the nature of the “family emergency” that had taken Temari away from her promising career in the World Magic Arena. But Karui was still looking at Sister Rin’s face, and that was the only reason she saw the brief flash of hurt that crossed her face at Temari’s words. 

_Would a demon really feel hurt by simple words?_ Karui thought, and then answered her own question a bare second later. _No._ Demons cared nothing for the opinions of petty humans, and they hadn’t the inclination towards deception. Sister Rin must be in control of herself—or at least, Karui hoped she was. She took the other woman’s hand and allowed Sister Rin to help her to her feet, even as Temari groaned and struggled to her feet alone.

“Karui, you fool, why did you do that?” she moaned. “Don’t you know she’ll only betray you in the end? She’s not human!”

“That’s not true,” Rin said, finally losing her temper. “I’m not going to pretend that there is no danger in associating with someone like me, but the slugs would never have allowed me to return to this plane of existence if I could not maintain control—”

“Oh, that’s a likely story!” Temari shouted, the tendons in her neck tense. “The gods withdrew their favor long ago, and all we’ve been left with are the demons who eat the root of the world! How else can you explain everything that’s gone wrong in this era? An invader is a sage, the great demons of old walk the earth, and now foreign fools collapse the distance between the planes themselves!”

“You’re wrong, Temari,” Karui said as firmly as she could in the face of this blasphemy. “Senju Hashirama is a sage, and a sage is man chosen by the gods as an avatar of purity in this world. Maybe it’s not the person we would have chosen, but he was chosen—”

“He wasn’t chosen by anyone, any more than my brother was,” Temari snapped, hands fisted at her sides. “He’s just a conduit to the other side, and you don’t have any idea what is over the—”

“I do,” Karui insisted.  “I’ve completed the Pilgrimage through the Maze to the heart of the Mother Temple; just because something is frightening doesn’t mean it’s evil or wrong. Senju Hashirama has been chosen, and so has your brother, for something _great_.”

“Spare me your tales of greatness,” Temari sneered. “I heard enough of that claptrap from that liar Jiraiya. I have seen something of the greatness my brother was sacrificed for, and it is a monster full of blood and malice. My poor mother is proof enough of that!”

But there was no time to ruminate on that further, for in a split-second Temari had lunged forward, fist flying faster than the eye could see towards Sister Rin—

—only for Sister Rin to casually catch the punch in her own hand and _squeeze_. Temari shrieked in pain, and Karui couldn’t help but take one step forward, hands outstretched to do something—anything!—only to be halted after one step.

“What?” Karui asked in surprise as she looked down at the blockage. “Another husky?”

Sister Rin paid Karui no mind. She only had eyes for Temari’s pained face as she stepped forward and painfully twisted the girl’s arm towards her ear.

“Enough of this. Your brother is not contaminated, Temari,” Sister Rin said. “He is _burdened_ , just as I am. He has a great purpose in his life, and although he is struggling with it now, I am certain that one day he will—”

“Oh thank my illustrious ancestor, and all her wolves,” a woman panted from behind Karui.  “No one is dead.”

Karui turned to look behind her, and saw the smiling woman from the nin association flyer was at the entrance to the courtyard, hands on her knees as she gasped from exertion. A second later, Konohamaru skid through the gate as well, flushed and sweaty and brandishing the first-aid kit like a prize. 

“Sister Rin,” he shouted, or at least he tried to. A third husky bounded into his back from behind, and Konohamaru fell right on his face as a result. The original husky who’d led him away then trotted through the door and delicately picked up the kit in its jaw before walking past Karui towards Sister Rin and Temari. The two women were still locked together, although now they were speaking in tones too quiet for Karui to make out.

“What a good boy you are,” the unnamed woman murmured as the dog went forth. She helped Konohamaru get his feet, looking considerably the worse for wear since his second entrance, and silently beckoned for Karui to follow them back the way they came. Karui didn’t need any more prompting; she just walked briskly after them, the husky who’d blocked her from moving forward gamboling cheerfully around her feet. Back through the iron gate, back through the moonshine-soaked courtyard, back into the hall with the marked lintels. It was there the unnamed woman stopped, opening one of the doors and gesturing for everyone to come inside.

Once inside, Karui saw it was a shrine to Sak’mo the hunter. A boy about Karui’s own age had knelt at the altar and was busy lighting a joss stick as an offering, yet another big dog lounging behind his back. The boy turned around as soon as the door opened, irritation in the lines of his shoulders, but as soon as he saw Karui, his jaw dropped. Like the woman who’d led Karui away from Sister Rin, he had black claws tattooed on his cheeks. 

“You!” he said in disbelief. 

“Me,” Karui agreed. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to her since winning the championship.

“You’re Karui, the winner of the junior worlds!” he gasped. “Can I have your autograph?”

“Kiba!” the unnamed woman scolded. “At least introduce yourself first.”

“Yeah, sorry, sis,” the boy said breezily. “I’m Inuzuka Kiba—can I _please_ have your autograph?”

Karui grinned. “Sure. Do you have pen and paper?”

Kiba swore and started frantically patting himself down. “Of all—the times—to forget-!”

Kiba’s still-unnamed sister sighed. “Don’t swear in front of the Patriarch, Kiba, it’s—"

“Mom does,” Kiba argued, suddenly looking up with all the nerve of an annoying little brother sensing weakness in an authority figure. “And since Mom does, I think—"

“No,” his sister said mildly. “I am not having this argument with you now, Kiba. Don’t swear in front of the shrine, and that’s final—"

“But—!”

“No _buts_ ,” she said firmly. “Now, if you want—"

“Excuse me, but _what the hell is going on here_?”

Karui turned away from the Inuzuka sibling show to look back at Konohamaru. He was looking more than a little frazzled, now that she considered him: shirt dirty from his fall, hair askew from pulling at it, and—“What is going on between Sister Rin and that other girl? They kept talking about some kind of sacrifice, but I’ve never heard anything about that!”

Karui exhaled softly, trying to think about how to address the subject. Where exactly had this kid grown up that he couldn’t speak the local vernacular and didn’t know about holy sacrifices? If he’d at least seen Sister Rin’s halo, that would be a starting point, but—

“That’s private information, Konohamaru,” the Inuzuka sister said firmly. Somehow, she said it in such a way that a person didn’t want to inquire further. “You’ll have to ask Sister Rin about that. Now, would you mind taking Kiba to get a pen and paper? He forgot his notebook and I don’t have anything either.”

The younger boy opened his mouth as if to protest, but he abruptly shut his mouth and set his face into the same mulish expression he’d had earlier. “Yeah, OK,” he said glibly, and he turned on his heel and walked away. The Inuzuka sister jerked her head at Kiba, and he followed after Konohamaru, looking about as confused as Karui felt. Both boys were gone in an instant, and the left Karui alone in a room with a strange woman and two—no, three!—enormous dogs.

“I bet Kiba thinks he’s being clever, leaving you here with me,” the sister said to the shaggy white dog still laying on the floor. He just huffed in response before rolling over to his other side. And right then and there, Karui’s temper just broke. 

“What is going on in this town?” Karui hissed. “Why is a boy without **SECOND SIGHT** working at a shrine with an active **VESSEL**? Why is that **VESSEL** even living here in the middle of Settlers’ Country? And why does Senju Tobirama’s magical aura look like someone dropped a plate on the floor?”

“Well, those are hard questions to answer,” the woman with fangs on her cheeks replied. There was a warm smile on her face, and Karui yearned to knock it right off. “But in short: I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know. But I’m being rude: My name is Inuzuka Hana, and I’m—"

"—president of the Nin Student Council,” Karui chorused in time with Hana’s words. Her guess earlier in the day had been correct.

“Oh, you’ve seen our flyers!” Hana said with a chuckle. “You’ve actually just met our faculty sponsor, the inscrutable Nohara Rin. And yes, there is a lot of mysterious stuff going on; this waystation, for instance, was an office building as little as a year ago. I have about as good idea of what’s going on as you. And you know what they say: where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And where there’s fire…”

“...there’s no better person than another nin to put out the flames,” Karui responded with a weary sigh. How often had she heard that phrase, joking or not, through her childhood training? There really wasn’t anyone better to have on your side than someone who knew all the ways magic could go horribly wrong, and as technically competent as some Invaders were becoming, they were still feeling their way in the dark when it came to the really complicated work of divining the Astral Planes and correctly categorizing its denizens.

Hana was a stranger to Karui, but she was still less of a stranger than everyone else in this town.

“Exactly,” Hana said with satisfied chuckle. “So with all that said...have you considered joining our group?”

**Author's Note:**

> If you're still puzzled by the font colors, this is the key:
> 
> "Northern Nin dialect" = language spoken by nin on the Northern Reserves
> 
> "Western Nin dialect" = language spoken by nin on the Western Reserves
> 
> "Central Nin dialect" = language spoken by nin in the rest of the country
> 
>  **"HOLY TONGUE"** = original mother tongue of all nin on the continent; not used for everyday speech anymore
> 
> "Common Tongue" = language of the dominant non-nin people of the continent


End file.
